Opinion 2: Respecting America's caregivers
By Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Evelyn Coke spent 20 years caring for the elderly as a home-care worker. She worked long hours and overnight shifts, performing one of our society's most important jobs - caring for the elderly in need. Despite her hard work, Evelyn struggled to make ends meet.The company that employed her, Long Island Care at Home, did not pay her the federal minimum wage, and she did not receive any overtime pay for the long hours she worked. The Supreme Court's June 11 decision in Long Island Care at Home v. Coke ruled that Evelyn - and hundreds of thousands of other dedicated caregivers like her all across the country - are not entitled to these basic protections of the law. This decision leaves glaring gaps in our worker protection laws that Congress must act to close.
Since the New Deal, the Fair Labor Standards Act has guaranteed workers a minimum wage and overtime pay. The guiding principle of this important law is that those who work hard for a living should be entitled to fair compensation.
The history of the Fair Labor Standards Act confirms that Congress intended the protections of the law to be broad. While the Act does give the Department of Labor authority to interpret the law by regulation in order to apply it fairly to complex circumstances, it is clear that Congress intended that most workers should be covered.
There is an exception in the law exempting workers who provide "companionship services" from the wage and hour protections of the Act. This exception was intended to apply to workers like babysitters, or family members who become live-in caregivers. Unfortunately, it has been read far more broadly to exclude all homecare workers from the Act's protections - even those who work for a regular corporate employer, with specific working hours, wages, and assignments. That interpretation undermines the purpose of our wage and hour laws.
The Bush Administration advocated for this narrow view of the Act's protections before the Supreme Court, and the Court deferred to their interpretation. It is now up to Congress to correct this unacceptable result.
In addition to being unfair, this harsh approach to worker protections is bad policy for the future of our economy. Home care is one of the nation's fastest growing careers. The industry now employs 3 million people, who care for nearly 7 million vulnerable members of our society. The demand for these workers is expected to increase rapidly in the future. Over the next ten years, our country is estimated to need nearly one million more home-care workers. When we deny essential members of our workforce the basic protections of the law, we not only harm them, we also harm the millions of people who depend heavily on these workers, and who deserve capable and dedicated caregivers. It is up to Congress to make clear that the Fair Labor Standards Act protects these hard-working men and women, and I hope that it will do so as soon as possible.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
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